


23

by DashFlintceschi



Category: You Me At Six
Genre: Creepy bastard makes them answer questions to escape, Josh and Dan are stuck in a weird complex, M/M, tortures them if they get it wrong
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-09
Updated: 2014-06-09
Packaged: 2018-02-04 00:11:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1760389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DashFlintceschi/pseuds/DashFlintceschi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Josh and Dan wake up in a strange building, with no idea how they got there. They quickly realise that their only chance of getting out alive, is each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	23

**Author's Note:**

> This happened when my brain mashed an episode of Doctor Who and an episode of Criminal Minds together, because why not?

When Josh woke up, he instantly knew something wasn’t right. He’d fallen asleep in Dan’s arms in their bed, but where he was now, was not their bed, and Dan’s strong, comforting embrace was nowhere to be found. He opened his eyes and looked around himself. He was lying on the ground in what looked like a holding cell. He had fallen asleep wearing his boxers and one of Dan’s t-shirts, but now, he was wearing some kind of grey tracksuit, oddly though, he’d been left barefoot. Even stranger was when he felt at his throat and found a metal band resting loosely around it. It wasn’t uncomfortable at all, just strange.

As he tried to figure out what was going on, Dan’s voice made him jump up.

“Josh?! Love, where are you?!” He sounded as frantic as Josh felt, but a quick scan of the room he was in gave no indication of where his boyfriend’s voice was coming from.

“I don’t know. I can hear you, but I can’t see you. I don’t know what’s happening.” At that moment, a new voice rung out.

“What’s happening, my dear, is a test,” the voice was distorted, like the person was using software to alter it. “Once the door in front of each of you opens, you will have exactly twenty-four hours to escape the compound. The only way to do that will be to answer the security questions on a sequence of doors. If you answer incorrectly, you will be punished. If you have not made it out when the time runs out, you will be executed. Your time starts now.”

There was a duel screech of the intercom disconnecting, and the door in front of him swinging open. Unsure of whether or not Dan could still hear him, he called out a quick ‘I love you’. Getting no reply, Josh sighed softly, then ventured out of the room. In front of him was a long, narrow, dimly lit corridor. He steeled himself, forced away the fear that remained, and strode forward. When nothing happened, he sighed in relief and sped up, determined to get out alive. He was scared of what would happen when he got to the first door, though. He knew he wasn’t stupid, but the only subjects he held any extensive knowledge on were music, and Dan.

It didn’t seem like much time passed before he reached the first door. It was metal, and looked heavy, with what looked like a primitive version of a laptop attached to the wall beside it. He turned to the screen, quickly read the question, and laughed loudly in relief. _‘What is Daniel’s middle name?’_ He thanked whatever deity was watching over him, typed in the answer, David, and sighed gladly when the door opened with a hiss.

The trip to the next door was much longer, but again, nothing attacked him and no booby-traps had been triggered. When he got to the screen, he read the question, and chewed his lip in trepidation. _‘What is Daniel’s favourite colour?’_ Dan had two favourite colours, emerald green and silver, Slytherin colours, Dan always joked. He had a 50/50 chance of getting it wrong and being ‘punished’. He did a mental coin flip, then typed ‘emerald green’ into the computer. 

As soon as he hit enter, the intercom screeched into life again. The distorted voice echoed all around him as it tutted mockingly.

“Poor, poor Daniel. It seems his beloved Joshua doesn’t love him as much as he thought. He can’t even tell me what poor Daniel’s favourite colour is.” With that, the intercom screeched again, but instead of silence, he heard Dan’s voice.

“Josh? Baby, it’s ok, I know that you know it. You know I have two, you guessed which one they thought was the right one, and you got it wrong, it’s ok.” A grinding noise drowned him out at that point, and then Josh was screaming, the most excruciating, heart wrenching scream Dan had ever heard, as the electric currant ran up from the floor, through his bare feet and all through his body.

After what felt like an eternity, it finally stopped, and Josh collapsed to the ground. He could hear Dan’s voice again now, screaming desperately.

“Josh?! Josh, please, answer me!” All Josh could do was whimper pathetically, but it seemed to be loud enough, as Dan went quiet, straining to hear him. What came next was not what he wanted to hear.

“Baby, I’m sorry, I don’t think I’m getting out of here,” Josh could feel his racing pulse in the soles of his feet, could feel the skin burning and curling away. He knew that even if he could move, it wouldn’t be fast enough to get out in time.

“No, baby, you can do it, I know you can. I know it hurts, but you’ve got to keep moving, ok?” Dan’s voice was desperate, wavering as he fought tears.

“I’ll try, but I don’t know if I can. I love you.” Once Dan responded in kind, Josh forced himself onto his knees and shuffled over to the computer. This time, when he typed in ‘silver’, the door hissed and opened.

Once he was through the door, he dropped down onto his hands and knees and started to crawl. Once he got the hang of it, he managed to move surprisingly quickly, despite the fact that every movement made him want to scream in agony; he thanked evolution for adrenalin and kept going.

After what felt like hours, he got to the next door. He looked up at the computer on the wall and started sobbing feebly. This one was higher up, there was no way he would reach it on his knees. He gathered up every ounce of strength he had and stood up, stuffing a section of his sleeve into his mouth to muffle his screams as the soles of his feet made contact with the stone ground beneath. 

He tried to read the question as quickly as possible, but he couldn’t focus and had to read it three times before it sunk in. _‘Where does Daniel want to get married?’_ Josh knew this, his boyfriend was a geek, he wanted to get married in the castle that Harry Potter had been filmed in, but he knew that he wouldn’t be able to put ‘Hogwarts’ as an answer, it would have to be the name of the real castle, which Josh couldn’t remember.

He wracked his brain for several minutes before he remembered a conversation he’d had with Dan, the last time Dan had ‘puppy-dog eyed’ him into having a marathon of the series. He remembered that Dan had told him that _Alnwick Castle_ had been used as a location for nearly 40 films and TV shows over the years, including the Harry Potter series. 

Unfortunately, it wasn’t until he hit enter that he realised his finger had slipped, and the screen read ‘Almwick Castle’ instead. He sobbed in terror as the intercom screeched again.

“Such a shame. Poor Joshua, being punished for a typo, all the while knowing that Daniel got it completely wrong. Joshua, please tell Daniel where you’d like to get married,” the voice had that mocking tone again, and Josh did his best to control his sobs before he answered, refusing to give the bastard the satisfaction.

“I used to want to get married at Emirates Stadium, but now I want to marry you in Alnwick Castle, because I know it would make you happy.” 

The intercom screeched again, then to Josh’s surprise, the door hissed open without anything happening. Thinking he’d been let off, he dropped to his hands and knees again and crawled forward. It wasn’t until he crossed the threshold into the next section of hallway that he realised what his punishment was to be. The floor in this section was completely covered in broken glass. He sobbed softly, covered his hands with his sleeves as best he could, then forced himself forward. 

The tracksuit was too thin to do any good, and by the time he reached the next door, he was sobbing openly, his hands, knees and shins ripped to shreds and leaving a thick trail of blood behind him. Thankfully, this computer was lower, he wouldn’t have to stand to reach it. It hurt almost as much to straighten up on his knees, though and he read the question quickly. _‘Which football team did Daniel support as a child?’_ He knew without thinking that Dan supported Aston Villa, but that was as an adult. Had he always supported them, or had he changed teams at some point?

After a few minutes, he vaguely remembered Dan mentioning that his dad had taken him to a Nottingham Forrest match when he was nine. But whether or not that was against Aston Villa, or if he’d been a Nottingham fan, Josh didn’t know. He decided he’d wasted too much time already, and took a chance. He typed in ‘Nottingham Forrest’ as fast as his mangled fingers would allow, sobbing softly in relief when the door hissed.

He had only gotten a few feet, when the intercom screeched. He felt his heart sink at the thought that Dan had gotten a question wrong, he couldn’t bear the thought of Dan being hurt again. Thankfully, he hadn’t, the bastard just wanted to fuck with them.

“Three hours gone, better get moving. Tick tock.”

“Yeah, but how much further do we have to go, fucker?!” Dan snarled, and even over the tinny intercom, Josh knew he never wanted to be on the receiving end of it. Their captor chuckled darkly.

“Round and round and round they go, when will they stop? Nobody knows!” He sang tauntingly, then disconnected the intercom.

Josh began sobbing desolately, but didn’t stop crawling, until he heard Dan’s voice. Not tinny like it was on the intercom, but slightly muffled and right beside him. His head shot to the side, and he sobbed harder. There was a glass panel in the wall, and Dan was sitting on the other side, his face deathly pale from pain, caused by the glass embedded in his feet.

Josh quickly shuffled over to the glass and sat down, glad to take the weight off of his shredded knees for a few minutes. He pressed a bloodied hand to the glass and managed to smile through his sobs.

“You have no idea how happy I am to see you,” he gasped, and Dan tried to smile back, but he was too focused on the wounds on Josh’s hand.

“We’re going to get out of here, ok? I’ll get you out, and you’re going to be alright, you’ll be fine, I promise.” 

They sat for a few more minutes, talking nonsense in an attempt to calm each other, then decided to keep moving. They had no idea how much further they had to go, and they didn’t want to run out of time because they’d spent too much time talking. When he got to the next door, Josh couldn’t help but smile when he read the question. _‘At what time was Daniel born?’_ He knew this, he’d seen Dan’s birth certificate when they’d moved in together, while he was helping him unpack. He typed in ‘3:17AM’ confidently, frowning when the intercom screeched. Instead of saying anything, their captor simply tutted, then turned it off again. 

At first, Josh thought that maybe Dan had gotten it wrong, but he knew that Dan knew he’d been born at night; 9:39, to be exact; because they were always joking that it was why Josh had always been a vile tempered bastard in the morning. He was trying to figure out why they’d been tutted, when the metal band around his throat suddenly tightened, forcing a strangled yelp from him. He could still breathe, but only just, the metal rubbing at his skin painfully.

“I got it right! I know I did! I was right, you fucker!” He wheezed out, but he got no reply, and the band didn’t loosen. The door opened then, despite him supposedly getting it wrong, and he kept crawling, only much slower now, getting out of breath much easier.

He got the questions at the next three doors correct, they were easy, there was never a chance of him getting them wrong. The band stayed tight, though, never changing in either direction, which Josh found unfair. It only changed when Josh got Dan’s sister’s birthday wrong, and it loosened again. He only had relief for a few seconds, before the deafeningly loud, high pitched whine rang out in his corridor. He screamed in pain and collapsed to the floor, covering his ears and sobbing when it did nothing to keep the noise out.

Again, the door hissed open despite his mistake, and the noise kept going until he got the next question, Dan’s biggest fear, correct. His ears kept ringing, though, and he could no longer hear the door hissing or his shuffling on the floor like he had earlier. He mournfully assumed he’d never hear again, and spent the rest of the time crawling along the corridor remembering that last conversation through the glass, replaying Dan’s voice in his head, focusing on that last ‘I love you’ before they’d parted ways.

Finally, he got to a door that looked thicker than the rest, and he felt hope swell slightly. It quickly vanished, though, when he read the question. _‘What is Daniel’s favourite thing about Joshua?’_ His favourite thing about Josh? How the fuck was he supposed to know that?! He sat for a while, pondering, running through memories in his mind. 

Finally, he realised a pattern. In every memory, Dan’s smile would get bigger when Josh laughed, that full bellied laugh that made him look like an idiot and sound psychotic. With more than a little trepidation, he shuffled back up onto his knees and typed ‘laugh’ into it. He could barely breathe as he hit enter, sobbing in relief when the door swung open.

He crawled forward, looking up in confusion as the walls on either side of him disappeared. He almost couldn’t believe it as he realised he was in a room. He looked up the wall and his breath caught in his throat. On the wall was a timer, reading ‘7:23’, and underneath it, a sign, simply reading ‘You Win’. He’d done it. He’d gotten out of the corridor with seven and a half hours to spare. He looked to the right, where he estimated Dan’s corridor was, and saw a door identical to the one he’d just came through, only this one was still closed. He crawled over to the wall and collapsed against it, making sure he had an unobstructed view of both the timer and Dan’s door, and settled down to wait.

As the time passed, Josh found it harder and harder to breathe, until finally, with one hour and seven minutes left, Dan’s door swung open and he staggered out, his eyes meeting the clock and sign on the wall, then swinging around wildly.

As soon as his eyes met Josh’s, he seemed to deflate, sagging in sheer relief as he staggered over and pulled Josh up and into his arms, Josh letting his legs wind around Dan’s waist as they clung to each other.

“I told you, baby. I told you we’d get out,” Dan whispered to him, but while Josh saw his lips move, and felt his chest vibrate with his words, all he heard was the loud ringing in his ears. At the realisation that his assumption had been correct, he buried his face in Dan’s chest and sobbed uncontrollably.

Dan’s eyes roved around the room again, until he found a door in the corner. When he pushed it open, bright daylight blinded him momentarily. As his eyes adjusted, his brain finally made sense of the sudden onslaught of noise. All around them were police, but their focus was on something to Dan’s right. Behind them were paramedics, and a voice he recognised as Max’s. It took him a minute, but when his eyes found Max, they also found the rest of his friends, all pale, exhausted and worried.

At that moment, the paramedics noticed them and came running over, quickly abandoning their attempt to separate them, after Josh started screaming hysterically as soon as hands that weren’t Dan’s touched him. Instead, they gripped Dan’s arms, steadying him as they lead him to an ambulance. They were halfway there, when a commotion behind them made Dan spin around. 

It had been another door that had held the police’s attention, and as Dan watched, the door swung open and what looked like a dozen or more police emerged, dragging a figure towards a riot van. A very familiar figure.

“Is that Curtis Ward? Did he do this?” When no-one answered him, he got very angry, very quickly. _“Did Curtis fucking Ward do this to us?!”_ He roared, his voice breaking from the volume.

Seemingly out of nowhere, Tom Sykes appeared on one side of him, Chris on the other, both resting a hand on his shoulders in an attempt to calm him.

“Come on, mate, let’s get you into the ambulance,” Tom urged, but when Dan ignored him, still glaring in Curtis’ direction as he trembled with rage, Chris sighed and decided that he had to play dirty.

“Mate, get in the ambulance, please, Josh needs a doctor, and he needs it now,” he pleaded softly, and finally, Dan turned away from the riot van and limped the rest of the way to the ambulance, climbing in and dropping down onto the stretcher without a word, eyes not leaving Josh’s trembling, huddled form.

They never found out why Curtis did what he did. Three days after he’d been arrested, he’d hung himself in his cell. The police had searched the compound and it’s history and found he’d been planning it for years. He’d bought the compound five years before, and had spent the time since then turning it into a torture house. Rooms and rooms had been found covered in photos of them both, and endless pages of plans, pros and cons, and outcomes. They never found any hint of a motive, though. It took them both a long time to come to terms with the fact that they’d never know why they’d been forced to go through it all.

It took a long time for them to heal, physically, at least, the emotional damage never really healed. Josh had to have skin grafts on his feet, with skin taken from his thigh, and walked with a slight limp that the doctors said would never go away; his hands, knees and shins were covered in scars, which he’d hide as much as possible; his hearing slowly but surely returned, but it was never the same, the ringing got quieter as time passed, but it was always there, and he often found himself asking people to speak up, as most people’s natural speaking volumes sounded like muffled nonsense to him; and his throat never fully healed, sometimes he’d suddenly be unable to breathe, making a god awful choking noise as he struggled for breath, and even when he got his breath back, he’d wheeze slightly for several hours afterwards. 

His voice also wavered and cracked quite often as he spoke, which everyone quickly learned to ignore. If they ignored it, he’d continue as though nothing had happened, but if they mentioned it, even to check if he was alright, he’d get extremely upset about it. Worse still was when his voice would disappear entirely for an hour or two. It didn’t happen very often, but when it did, Dan could swear you could almost see Josh retreating into his shell. Dan was adamant that when it would happen, Josh would hunch over slightly, curling in on himself in an attempt to stay unnoticed.

Shortly after they’d healed as much as they were going to, on a warm but breezy day in April, Josh and Dan finally stopped making excuses and got married in the gardens of Alnwick Castle. The ceremony, meticulously planned to the tiniest detail, went without a hitch, and Josh’s voice didn’t crack or waver once.


End file.
